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What should Rogues do?
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6027930" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>I want to know what you mean by "equally effective". Because a properly built 3.5 bard was <em>damn</em> effective. And it's easy enough to build a 4e Warlord who never rolls an attack roll.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A fighter in 1e defended for two reasons. He was first through the door and no one could get past him. They couldn't get past him for two reasons.</p><p></p><p>1: The fighter was in the doorway or a narrow corridor. Put PCs outside a dungeon and it becomes a whole lot harder for the fighter to defend.</p><p>2: Attacks of opportunity in AD&D were <em>vicious</em>. +4 to hit I think and you could only leave combat with the withdraw option or by trying to flee.</p><p></p><p>This meant that once the fighter engaged someone they stayed there under the rules (and vise-versa) unless they were (a) not in a dungeon and (b) incredibly reckless.</p><p></p><p>2e took D&D out of the dungeon a lot of the time. Which meant you could run round the fighter. Fighters no longer consistently had the first tool to be a defender.</p><p></p><p>WotC seriously toned down opportunity attacks when they produced 3e - no +4 to hit and everyone had more hit points. Plus the five foot step. The fighter's second tool to be a defender was crippled.</p><p></p><p>4e weakened opportunity attacks <em>again</em> by increasing hit points - and giving people more movement abilities to create much more fluid combats. And to make up for it they gave fighters opportunity attacks from hell and allowed them to <em>mechanically</em> intimidate their opponents.</p><p></p><p>In 1e because combat is largely static and dungeon walls are a near certainty, first through the door is enough. Make combat fluid and take away the walls and this stops working. So you need to add it back if you want defending to work at all.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh please.</p><p></p><p>1e Monks were hard to play because they were a type of specialist thief who couldn't wear armour, didn't get a dex bonus to AC, and had hit dice rolled on d4s. As a thief who was worse than the standard thief at mainline thievery but could fall off walls, run away, play dead, and talk to animals they weren't bad. They were also superb dart/dagger throwers. On the other hand this isn't what the fluff presented. The fluff spent a lot of time on Awesome Martial Arts and about a paragraph on the fact that they got thief skills. Had they opened with the thief's role and said the monk was like a specialist thief they'd have had much better results.</p><p></p><p>1e Bards - the less said the better. The whole class was a mess.</p><p></p><p>2e Bards weren't hard to play. They hit second level spells at the same time wizards did and third level spells at the same time a wizard/thief did. They never got <em>as</em> powerful, but they were much more survivable at low levels and had a string of tricks of their own.</p><p></p><p>(The other problem the 1e monk had was that the thief was never very good at sneaking - look at those hide in shadows percentages).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The 3.X rogue absolutely was a striker in combat. The 1e fighter was a striker - and a 4e barbarian can defend just as well in a natural bottleneck (note that the bottleneck is not on the character sheet). It's' simply that the 1e thief was a non-combat specialist.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 6027930, member: 87792"] I want to know what you mean by "equally effective". Because a properly built 3.5 bard was [I]damn[/I] effective. And it's easy enough to build a 4e Warlord who never rolls an attack roll. A fighter in 1e defended for two reasons. He was first through the door and no one could get past him. They couldn't get past him for two reasons. 1: The fighter was in the doorway or a narrow corridor. Put PCs outside a dungeon and it becomes a whole lot harder for the fighter to defend. 2: Attacks of opportunity in AD&D were [I]vicious[/I]. +4 to hit I think and you could only leave combat with the withdraw option or by trying to flee. This meant that once the fighter engaged someone they stayed there under the rules (and vise-versa) unless they were (a) not in a dungeon and (b) incredibly reckless. 2e took D&D out of the dungeon a lot of the time. Which meant you could run round the fighter. Fighters no longer consistently had the first tool to be a defender. WotC seriously toned down opportunity attacks when they produced 3e - no +4 to hit and everyone had more hit points. Plus the five foot step. The fighter's second tool to be a defender was crippled. 4e weakened opportunity attacks [I]again[/I] by increasing hit points - and giving people more movement abilities to create much more fluid combats. And to make up for it they gave fighters opportunity attacks from hell and allowed them to [I]mechanically[/I] intimidate their opponents. In 1e because combat is largely static and dungeon walls are a near certainty, first through the door is enough. Make combat fluid and take away the walls and this stops working. So you need to add it back if you want defending to work at all. Oh please. 1e Monks were hard to play because they were a type of specialist thief who couldn't wear armour, didn't get a dex bonus to AC, and had hit dice rolled on d4s. As a thief who was worse than the standard thief at mainline thievery but could fall off walls, run away, play dead, and talk to animals they weren't bad. They were also superb dart/dagger throwers. On the other hand this isn't what the fluff presented. The fluff spent a lot of time on Awesome Martial Arts and about a paragraph on the fact that they got thief skills. Had they opened with the thief's role and said the monk was like a specialist thief they'd have had much better results. 1e Bards - the less said the better. The whole class was a mess. 2e Bards weren't hard to play. They hit second level spells at the same time wizards did and third level spells at the same time a wizard/thief did. They never got [I]as[/I] powerful, but they were much more survivable at low levels and had a string of tricks of their own. (The other problem the 1e monk had was that the thief was never very good at sneaking - look at those hide in shadows percentages). The 3.X rogue absolutely was a striker in combat. The 1e fighter was a striker - and a 4e barbarian can defend just as well in a natural bottleneck (note that the bottleneck is not on the character sheet). It's' simply that the 1e thief was a non-combat specialist. [/QUOTE]
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